Memories of a Cherry Blossom
by uo-chou
Summary: One year ago a life ended and two others changed forever. One year ago two friends sought to test themselves against each other. One year ago Team 7 was forever shattered. Can Naruto and Sasuke recover from Sakura's death? No yaoi. Adult Language.
1. Chapter 1

Memories of a Cherry Blossom

Chapter I: Sasuke

"Of course I'll marry Sasuke-kun one day!"…"Sasuke-kun, I love you!"…"Sasuke is the one that I admire."

He was tortured by remembrances of her. Guilt, sorrow, and thoughts of what could have been ran through his head constantly. He knew one day he would have to rebuild his clan and that in order to do so he would have to take a wife. Despite how annoying he used to find her, she probably would have been the one. She was his team mate, after all… The only girl who he was really close with.

Sasuke held his hands in front of his face and cried. He sat in the living room of his apartment, the lights turned down, and wallowed in despair. He had thought at the age of seven, when his clan was massacred, that he would never experience pain like that again. He was wrong. When his family was taken away from him he had thought the event had left him dead inside. Sakura's death… no… murder had left him with a completely new kind of pain, the kind that came with a sense of responsibility that the wholesale slaughter of his kinsmen lacked. If Itachi was still human, this is what he would be feeling.

He had killed Sakura. Sure, the dobe thought he was equally at fault, but Sasuke _knew_. The Uchiha's doujutsu had been active at the time, and there were no errors where the sharingan was concerned. When Sakura had ran in between them, Sasuke's chidori had slid through his pink haired teammate's head like a hot knife through a melon, over a second before Naruto's rasengan had pulverized her heart. Sasuke knew that it was his fault. That day on the roof of the hospital would live with him forever.

Still alone, ever alone, Sasuke picked up the sake bottle some simpering, ass-kissing cunt of a merchant had sold him and downed the entire thing in one drink. Tomorrow… Maybe tomorrow he would visit her grave again. It had been almost two days after all.

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Author's Note: Something darker, something more emotional… I hope that this story will help me write people a little better. I know it's my worst area right now. Dialog has never been my thing either, but I'm hoping that will improve as well in later installments. This chapter is intentionally short; I'm aiming for one page chapters, and I'm going to try to update this each day. Tomorrow's chapter is titled 'Naruto'. Ten imaginary dollars to anyone who can guess what it's going to be about. ;) By the way, if you want to read an overview of what this story's going to be about, check out my story idea fic, "What If?"


	2. Chapter 2

Memories of a Cherry Blossom

Chapter II: Naruto

"You actually look cool, Naruto."…"Naruto, let's practice taijutsu."…"Let me sit next to Sasuke, Naruto!"…"Naruto no baka!"

He was a mass of raw, writhing nerves trapped in an unbreakable shell he had forged through countless days and nights of suffering. He cried, silently with a stupid grin plastered on his face. He wished he could make the tears come out again, as he had when he was a child, but he knew that the days of wearing his heart on his sleeve were long over.

Sunlight filtered through the blinds of his apartment, a three room space filled with plants but otherwise devoid of anything indicative of human warmth. He had taken to cleaning after that day; it sometimes helped him forget just a little. His apartment was immaculate. All of the secondhand furniture given to him by the third Hokage was polished, masterfully repaired, and spotless. His floors gleamed. There was never enough to do to fill the emptiness inside.

Since _that day_ he had opened three incredibly successful businesses with the help of his shadow clone technique, and of course the henge. He had almost cornered the market on unskilled manual labor in Konoha. Despite thousands of subjective hours of backbreaking, menial labor, he still could never forget her. Not that he wanted to… His emotions were a dichotomy torn between wishing the pink-haired girl had never existed and wallowing in bitterly sweet memories of her forever. Naruto had always been a living contradiction.

Naruto decided that he would visit Sakura's grave tomorrow to leave an offering. He usually visited two or three times a week to clean her resting place. He knew that Sasuke visited her gravesite nearly as often, but somehow the two of them had only run into each other a handful of times in over a year. They would nod to each other, but never meet eyes, and both would stand away from each other mourning silently. They would part just as impersonally, without ever having exchanged words.

Naruto stood up, needing to do _something_. Never the thing he wanted, never again, because he was no longer a ninja. But he would do something, _anything_, in order to plug the chasm in his soul. Perhaps he would build a few more houses today, or haul a few tons of grain or something. He might be able to forget for a little while.

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Author's Note: Naruto and Sasuke have very different ways of dealing with grief. They are both still just 'existing', though; neither is truly living. What needs to happen to shake them up? It's still probably a few chapters off, but things will definitely start moving again for both of them. Tomorrow's chapter is titled 'Flowers'.


	3. Chapter 3

Memories of a Cherry Blossom

Chapter III: Flowers

Sasuke always bought flowers from the Yamanaka flower shop. He could have purchased them elsewhere. He probably should have.

Ino, one of his ex-fangirls and the former best friend of Sakura worked at the Yamanaka shop. Sasuke remembered a time when the peppy blonde girl had professed her love for him on a daily basis, when she had promised to do anything to be his girl. These days, he was luck if she just spit on him.

This first day he had walked into the flower shop, almost a year ago, she had invaded his mind with that strange jutsu of hers. He had woken up hours later, black and blue, lying in the Konoha garbage pits. Two of his ribs were cracked, and it felt like someone had taken a club to his head. Since then, Ino's reactions were never so extreme, but the usually outgoing and gossipy girl had never spoken a single word to him. Most of the village felt rather ambiguous about the crime that had gotten him drummed out of the ninja service, but not Yamanaka Ino.

This week, luckily, it was old Inoichi who was manning the counter. Sasuke picked out the usual arrangement, silently paid for it, then left. Ino was probably out on a mission. Sasuke remembered missions. He remembered the chunin exam. He never wanted to forget anything having to do with _her_.

He walked quietly to the memorial stone first. Sakura, not having been on a mission or in defense of Konoha at the time, had not had her name carved onto the memorial stone. Sasuke had fixed that oversight one hazy, drunken night. In letters a little less perfect than all the rest, her name was etched. Sasuke gave it a brief look of acknowledging, for indeed, she had been a kunoichi, then left for her grave.

He arrived a short time later. Walking across the field of grave markers, he noticed a spiky blonde boy coming from the opposite direction. They had never arrived at the same time before. Their eyes met for the first time in over a year, and a feeling of shock passed between them as they both wondered simultaneously, just what the hell they had been doing all this time.

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Author's Note: I suppose you could call this an interlude, but it was needed. Ino, obviously, took Sakura's death hard. They were best friends, after all. Her attitude toward Sasuke certainly has shifted. The next chapter is called "Beginning".


	4. Chapter 4

Memories of a Cherry Blossom

Chapter IV: Beginning

They sat together at Ichiraku, still one of the few restaurants that would serve Naruto. It had been a year since either one had truly talked to anyone and it showed. They sat silently for most of their meal, one or the other occasionally trying to start talking. The attempts were short and abortive. Once they had both paid for their food they knew that it _could_ be over, but neither wanted to go back to what had been seemingly for so long. Things needed to be settled.

They went to Naruto's apartment. Sasuke's flat was filled with a mass of empty sake bottles and filth; he never even suggested going there. They sat at Naruto's dining room table for a while, drinking glasses of water, until Sasuke got up the nerve to speak.

"I'm sorry Naruto, I... I goaded you into that fight." Apologizing was the hardest thing Sasuke had ever done. Mastering the chidori had nothing on this.

Naruto spoke, "I wanted to fight, Sasuke. I _needed _to beat you. It's my fault too." He somehow managed to keep the idiotic grin which ruled his life off of his face.

With each ex-ninjas admission of guilt the floodgates were released and the two talked for hours. They talked about anything and everything, but the conversation always came back to Sakura. _Her._ Sakura, the girl who had loved one of them and who was loved by the other. The one they had killed that terrible day on the hospital roof.

"We should do something to honor her memory." Said Naruto.

Sasuke agreed. They discussed the matter further, and both were ashamed to admit that beyond marrying Sasuke neither had an idea of what the pink haired girl had wanted out of life. They finally decided to ask someone who would know—Yamanaka Ino.

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Author's Note: The next chapter is called "Peace".


End file.
